Abstract
The toxicity of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as well as dioxins occurs by binding to arylhydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is well known. Biological reactions concerning carcinogenicity and the aspects of involvement of both materials were outlined based on this AhR-dependent mechanism. Besides, methodological approaches for evaluating health risk of PAH mixture coming out until now were summarized. Among these, an approach (Relative Potency Factor Approach), which evaluates it by adding up the individual toxicities of PAHs as already used in health assessment of dioxins, was outlined, and in addition, a health risk assessment technique (Induced Mutagenesis Method) which the authors developed based on the mechanism concerning carcinogenicity is described in detail.
